What an audacious statement that is! No one
would believe it of course, unless history had proved it true. But
now with all these centuries between this text and our time, no one can
dispute it. No one can deny it. The long centuries of church
history have proved that it is absolutely true! We don't need to
defend this text.

There are two sides to it: the magnetism of
the cross and the manner in which Christ is lifted up. We will begin with
the second.

The text leaves no doubt as to the manner.
John adds after this text, "This he said, signifying what death he should
die." Jesus was talking about the cross when He said, "If I'm lifted
up, I'll draw all men to me."

Christ was lifted up upon a cross. He knew
how He was going to die. We don't know how early He knew it.
In Bethlehem is the Church of the Nativity. Over the place where
it is thought the manger stood is a tapestry. Woven into the tapestry
is a cross. The shadow of the cross was indeed over the cradle of
Christ. When His parents took the infant Christ to the temple, Simeon
the prophet spoke of a sword of sorrow that would pierce the heart.

To suppose that Jesus in His childhood or youth was
thinking of the cross would be a heartless supposition. Yet surely
when His ministry began, at least from that point on, the shadow of the
cross hung unmistakably over Him. He knew how He was going to die.

That it was a cross is perhaps coincidental.
The death of Christ would have meant fully as much to the world if He had
died in some other way. His blood would have been just as powerful
to forgive our sins. He might have been put to death by drowning,
as some of His followers were. Many Christian martyrs lost their
lives in this way. When you see a baptism, remember there have been
Christians who died because they believed in baptism by immersion.
They were drowned. Jesus' death would have been as effective for
our forgiveness if He had died in this way, or if He had been buried alive
as other Christian martyrs were, or burned at the stake.

But there seems to be a special lesson in the fact
that He died on a cross, lifted up, held up to public view, above the men
who stood below to ridicule Him. That cross was lifted up on a hill.
Jesus death would have meant as much to the world if He had been crucified
in a valley or on a plain. It is only by coincidence that the cross
happened to be on a hill. Yet what an instructive coincidence that
is.

When we stand on a hill, we get a better viewpoint.
We can see more clearly. Is there any place on earth where we see
things as clearly as at Calvary? Standing in other places our view
of life is distorted and thrown out of focus. When we stand on top
of that hill where Jesus died, we are able to see life clearly and to see
ourselves clearly. The mists roll away. From the vantage point
of Calvary we can see farther. We can see beyond the immediate things
we worry about or think about. We see the ultimate things that ought
to occupy our attention.

Yes, the fact that the cross was on the hill teaches
us that here we have a viewpoint that we need. Standing on that "green
hill far away" we have a different vantage point, too.

Before the advent of airplanes and helicopters, generals
always had their battle stations on hilltops. There they could look
out over the whole scene of battle. They could see how the enemy
troops had been deployed. They could see where they needed to move
in reinforcements or change their strategy. They could map out the
whole battle plan because they had a vantage point. Men built their
castles and forts on the tops of hills. They were harder to storm,
easier to defend.

At Calvary we have a vantage point - a vantage point
from which we as Christian soldiers can march out in His name; a vantage
point from which we can plan a strategy to win the world to Christ.

He was lifted up upon a cross. The cross was
lifted up upon a hill, but all of that is significant only because of who
it is who hung on that cross.

Let others who will praise the cross of the Christ,
The Christ of the cross is my king.
For though we must cherish the old rugged cross,
'Tis only the Christ can redeem.

A thousand crosses had been stuck into the sand of Palestine.
Jesus was neither the first nor the last to die on a cross. His cross
is significant because of who He is! Here the sinless Son of God
died for man. That makes all the difference.

That's the meaning of the text. The Christ,
lifted up on his cross, draws all men to Him. But would we be doing
that text an injustice to go a step beyond it? Since Christ has been
lifted up upon that cross, He now must be lifted up before the world.
He must be lifted up in worship.

In addition to the alphabetical index in the back
of the hymnal there is a second index. It is a topical index.
Among the categories there is one marked, "Christ." You'll discover
that in the hymnal there are more songs about Christ than about any other
subject. That's the way it ought to be. In worship we lift
Him up!

Compare the songs that speak of our fumbling human
experience and the songs that lift up Christ. Which ones inspire
you more? Which ones do you more good? The songs that turn
inward upon our need or situation or victory or defeat or the songs that
cause us to look up to Him?

We come about the table of Communion that Christ
may be lifted up. We must always see more than bread and wine.
Christ is lifted up in Communion. If all else fails, if the sermon
falls flat, if the songs are filled with discords and no one gives us a
happy greeting, we will still find inspiration at the Communion table.
Christ is lifted up in Communion.

Every time we witness a baptism we must see someone
other than the preacher and the person. We must see three people
there. The whole purpose of baptism is to lift up Christ. We
lift Him up in worship.

We lift Him up when we preach. A wise man said
to a group of ministers, "When all the rest of you are preaching up the
times, I hope you will permit one poor brother to preach up Christ."

It s not the purpose of the sermon to give us U.S.
News and World Report. We can find that at the newsstand.
The sermon must tell us something that we will not read in Time
magazine or in the daily newspaper. It is something that you will
not hear on the television news. One must lift up Christ above the
issues of the day that confuse us, above the problems of the hour that
terrify us.

Another minister said to a group of his fellow ministers,
"In every text in the Bible there is a track that leads to Christ.
Find it and follow it."

Let life lift up Christ. He was lifted up upon
His cross. He is lifted up in worship. He is lifted up in preaching.
Let Him be lifted up in life. Let us pray that at least one time
in our lives someone will see something in us that makes them think of
Him; that we will do at least one deed of which someone will say, "That's
what Christ would have done." Let us pray that at one point in life
our response to some situation or to some individual will be the very response
that Christ would have made.

It is perhaps expecting too much to suppose that
would happen very often. Let us hope that it happens sometime; that
life lifts Him up.

We must speak of the magnetism when Christ is lifted
up. Magnets are fascinating! They were our toys when we were
children. Then we learned that somebody magnetized a needle, put
it in a little round box and made a compass that unerringly pointed north.
Later on men discovered that you could take a coil of wire, spin it between
the poles of a magnet and produce electricity.

Our buildings are lighted today by a magnet.
They are cooled or heated as we desire by a magnet. All the wheels
of industry are turned by a magnet.

Do you see how we have moved to succeedingly higher
levels of magnetism? From the toy, to the compass, to electricity,
to the universe. You might suppose that how we can go to no higher
level, but such a supposition would be wrong. More powerful than
the magnetism of the planets is the magnetism of Christ.

He draws us intellectually. He spoke of the
deepest and profound issues of life. We do not simply discuss them
in college classrooms or among professors. Children ask the same
questions. Who is God? Who am I? What happens when you
die? Why do people suffer? Can we be forgiven? Those
are the deep issues of life and Jesus addressed them. He addressed
them in terms so simple that any twelve-year-old child can understand His
words, yet the wisest man among us ponders their deep meaning. He
draws us intellectually.

He draws us emotionally. There is something
about the great heart of Jesus that answers an emptiness in our own hearts.
We wonder how anyone can love so unselfishly, so impartially, so freely,
so unashamedly, so fearlessly, so sacrificially. We'd like to love
like that. We d like to love Him, and others, the way He loves us.
We're drawn to Him emotionally.

We're drawn to Him spiritually. His life towers
above our own. His virtues overshadow our best. We want to
be more like Him.

We're drawn by His life. We're drawn by His
sermons, His miracles, His feeding of the multitude, His welcoming of the
children, His offer of forgiveness to the lost.

We are drawn to Jesus in His life. We are drawn
most to Him in His death. Did you ever think about that strange song
we sing, "Jesus, keep me near the cross"? There is something unnatural
about that. Whenever we have been in the presence of death, whether
at the scene of an accident or in a hospital room, our reaction has always
been the same. "Let's get away from here." Why is it that we
make an exception in the case of Jesus and sing, "Jesus, keep me near the
cross?"]

There was something different about His death, something
that rises above the grim details. Preachers used to think it was
effective to describe the sweat, the blood, the pain, the torn flesh.
Perhaps that was not very valuable. We must see the reason
that He died and the Person who died. Then we will understand
the uniqueness of Jesus death and why we are so drawn to it.

We are drawn to His cross when we need forgiveness.
There is something there that answers to our need. We can believe
there what we would not dare to believe in any other place: that God does,
in fact, forgive sin.

We are drawn to Him on His cross when we need comfort.
I had a conversation with a fellow Christian. We were discussing
the meaning of suffering. I admitted that I had never experienced
what this particular individual was going through. But I reminded
her that Christ did understand because Christ suffered, too. The
change in facial expression was like the turning on of a light. There
is comfort at the cross.

When we need companionship we are drawn to the cross.
Jesus suffered alone so that no one would ever have to be alone again.
If any man ever is alone, it is because he chooses to be alone.

Because we are drawn to the cross, we may forget
that there is another side to magnetism. A magnet has two poles.
One attracts. One repels. We have read the verse that follows
our text. We must now read the one that goes before it.

"Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me."

It is like the poles of a magnet. Christ draws
some men. He repels others. But at this point the illustration
runs out. The parable falls short. The analogy dies.
The iron has no choice as to whether it will go to the side of the magnet
that attracts or the side of the magnet that repels. You do have
a choice. You can stand in that place where Christ by His divine
magnetism will draw you to himself. Or you can stand at that opposite
pole where Christ's magnetism repels and you are forced out into darkness
and judgment.